Clermont fall in Agen

Following the Paris match was a highly anticipated weekend off, as many of the players are feeling the pains of the long and enduring season. It wasn't a week off of training, however, but it was much lighter than normal. Preparing for our match-up at home against the reigning Top 14 Champions was quite an experience. It was a pretty hard week in regards to training, and I actually thought by the end of the week our forwards would be too tired for the contest. However, it was our forwards that kept us on the front foot all game, both defensively and offensively. I was on the bench for this match, an unlikely role for a winger, but played the last 3 minutes.

It was a "uh-oh" type of start for us as we dropped the first kickoff and turned the ball over in our own 22. We played some solid defense to get out of it, but then lost the ensuing scrum and again had to play defense within our 5 meter line. The relentless attack of Clermont was being stopped formidably by our defense; but after a penalty, the very alert French-capped scrum half quick-tapped, doubled around and was able to slip through for a try 4 minutes into the game.

If this was the first half of the season, we might have put our heads down and gotten complacent. But this Agen team is much different now and stood up to the challenge, played some excellent running rugby and earned a penalty to make the score 3-7. We knew we could play with them and we played well; 5 minutes later we scored a try, which was a great individual run by our flanker. This was the beginning of an onslaught of points for us as we scored another penalty and another try before the 18 minute mark and brought the scoreline to 20-7 in our favor. It was a great performance overall and a feeling of relief to finished ahead in a "must-win" game. Final score: 26-17

Next week is another one of those however, at home against Castres, who are currently sitting 3rd in the Top 14. We are still at the 11th position, 1 point ahead of Brive, who also won on the weekend against the bottomless Bourgoin team. Here are the standings with just 4 games left:

Toulouse         69
Racing Metro  68
Castres            63
Biarritz            62
Montpellier      61
Perpignan        58
Clermont         58
Toulon            56
Bayonne         54
Paris               49
Agen              38
Brive              37
La Rochelle    33
Bourgoin          5

Extended Absence Update

Wow! It's been a lot longer than I thought since my last post. Needless to say, there's been quite a lot going on here, between figuring out my first year taxes in France, extra training sessions and most importantly, Lauren coming back, it's been quite busy. I hate to put blame on Lauren, but what are partners for:)

Anyway, let me give you a quick update on the last month. Four weeks ago we played at Montpellier to a nail-biter of a match. I started and played 80 minutes at left wing. We were up at the half 7-3 and playing really good defense. However, 3 penalties to start the second half put them ahead just 10 minutes in and from there it was a seesaw scoreline. Eventually they scored a try with 2 minutes left to go ahead by 8 and put the win out of reach. However, we knew we had to salvage something from our highly determined performance, and we did just that. We kept the ball for nearly 2 minutes of extra time, and ended the game with a try to get a much needed bonus point for losing by less than 7. Final score: 24-25.

The following week I had a mandatory one week rest for a "possible," yet, unconfirmed injury, which was pretty frustrating and resulted in me staying home for this match. It was much of the same for our team, however. Only down 3 at half, we tied it within minutes of the second stanza. Another back-and-forth of penalties made until we took the lead 18-15 with 15 minutes to go. However, just a few minutes later, the Parisians in Pink found the first and only try of the match. There would be no more scoring and we let yet another one slip away, 18-22.